(The new moniker was an amalgam of a nonsense word Markoe and Letterman would say to each other — «melman» — coupled with a nod to one of the Watergate conspirators, Egil «Bud» Krogh Jr.) From the debut, DeForest became one of the show's leading lights of absurdity, a seemingly clueless every -
schlub stumbling his way through new - product parodies («Toast on a Stick») or plugging the fictional «Melman Bus Lines.»